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Friday, January 1, 2016

New Plans for the New Year

Happy New Year! I send love out to you and I hope you had a great time ringing in 2016. As they were for many people, the last few days of 2015 were days of reflection and planning for me. Here's what I shared on my personal Facebook page:

Normally I don't go in for Facebook trends, but I do think there is
value in evaluating the past year's adventures, hoping to become a
better person. 2015 was a very interesting and very difficult year. I
learned a lot of important things about myself and others, even though
learning those things was sometimes painful and required a lot of hard
work. During this coming year, and those that follow it, I hope to be
mindful of the following sentiment from Lao Tzu: “When you are content
to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will
respect you.”

In addition to my personal goals, I also have some professional goals with regards to Illuminate Crochet. I've come a long way in only 2 1/2 years, farther than I could have imagined, but my work is still just beginning. 2016 will be a year of hard work, focus, and achievement. Here are my fiber-y goals for the new year...

Unveil a new feature: Project Page Appreciation
Features for 2015 trailed off, in large part because securing the info I requested from interviewees in a timely fashion was very difficult and frustrating. I love collaboration, but this year I'd like to do a feature that relies less on others. I also really enjoyed the Remix Friday feature from 2014 because it connected with hobby crocheters.

With all of that in mind I am pleased to unveil the new feature for 2016: Project Page Appreciation. Project pages on Ravelry really help out designers and crocheters alike. They show everyone that your pattern can be followed to completion, often showing it in different yarns and colors as well. Plus, who wouldn't want to show off all of their hard work to people who will appreciate it? On the last Friday of each month I will select and celebrate a project page from one of my Ravelry patterns. I will also gift a small prize to the featured crocheter. That way, it's easy to enter and be considered. Just upload a project page! Reveal my secret crochet projects
It's almost time to finally reveal the projects that I've been working so hard on all year long. There will be two big, awesome announcements, so stay tuned! I hope to be able to reveal them sooner rather than later. Update my blog
There are a few things I'd like to change around here. I want to add a new permanent page with all of my patterns on it for easy reference. I also want to scrap Google's Adsense ads. I like Google and their products in general, but I don't like the idea that I can't control what ads blog readers see when they visit my page. Instead, I'm hoping start up some small, inexpensive direct ads from fiber-related sources that I trust.

Publish more patterns to Ravelry and Craftsy
I published 9 patterns this year, at least to outward appearance. The truth is that I actually wrote more than double that amount! I wrote more patterns this year than I did last, I just haven't been able to share them publicly yet. This next year I'd like to publish more patterns publicly regardless of any secret crochet I've got going on.